songs from the shows

Song 4:365 is On My Own from the musical Les Misérables in which Éponine expresses her unrequited love for Marius. Although this song is one of the most well-loved in the show, it didn’t feature in the original French version. Instead the melody was used in a song performed by Fantine, L’Air de la Misère.

Running a bit late tonight after a very busy day at the Language Show in London. Over the next few days I’m going to be playing some of my favourite pieces from the musical Martin Guerre, written by by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg of Les Miserables and Miss Saigon fame. Today’s song is called How Many Tears.

Today’s song comes from the Jerome Kern musical Showboat. Old Man River tells of the struggle of the stevedore Joe on a showboat on the Mississippi river. It’s an interesting song for a number of reasons: it’s plodding, slow rhythm is said to represent the movement of the river itself, it’s a rare example of a bass solo in a musical, and the main melody uses the pentatonic scale.

Yesterday was apparently Julie Andrews’ 80th birthday so on hearing that I decided to make today’s songs one of the classics from The Sound of Music, and one I’ll always associate with Julie Andrews, My Favourite Things. In the original Broadway version this song was sung by Maria before she left the Abbey, but it was reworked for the film version to be sung by Maria and the children during the thunderstorm. I hope you enjoy my own take on My Favourite Things.

Today’s song is Angel of Music, a lovely piece from the musical The Phantom of the Opera and this was a special request from one of our young stars of the forthcoming High Five Spanish series with whom I’m working this week. ¡Espero que te guste, ‘Marina’!

The Les Misérables film is being shown on UK TV for the first time tonight so I thought I’d play something from the show. I played a number of songs from Les Mis in 2010, some of which are on my Curtain Up collection, and earlier this year I played the new song from the film, Suddenly.

Red and Black is an interesting song. The student revolutionaries have formed themselves into an organisation called “La Société des Amis de l’ABC” and the café where they meet is referred to as the ABC Café (although in the original book it’s called the Café Musain). When said in French the letters ABC sound something like “ah-bay-say” which is a play on the word abaissé, meaning oppressed, so the students are “the friends of the oppressed”.

The students are meeting to plan the June Rebellion and their meeting is interrupted by the arrival of Marius who ruins the serious atmosphere with his tales of his newfound love, Cosette. For Marius red represents “his soul on fire” and “the colour of desire”, and black is “my world when she’s not there” and “the colour of despair”. For the rest of the students red is “the blood of angry men” and “a world about to dawn”, while black is “the dark of ages past” and “the night that ends at last”.

Today’s song is A Pharaoh Story from the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. First performed as a 15-minute cantata in 1968, Joseph was reworked into a longer show and became a full-length stage production in 1970, making it to the West End by 1973. It has seen many revivals and there is talk of a film version of the show, following the success of other film versions of musicals such as Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera.

The reason I’m playing this song today is that over the past few weeks I’ve seen many reports of a fantastic version of Joseph being produced by Centerstage, a local organisation who do fantastic work with performers young and not-so-young. It sounds like their very special productions of Joseph have been a huge success following their summer schools this year. Congratulations to Fiona and the team!

Yesterday I had one of my wisdom teeth removed and this song came to mind as the circular saw approached my mouth… Dentist! is from the 1982 Alan Menken and Howard Ashman musical, Little Shop of Horrors. It took me back to when we produced Little Shop of Horrors when I was teaching at Mearns Castle. I think our plant is probably still doing the rounds of other schools! Here’s a clip of the brilliant Steve Martin playing the sadistic dentist Orin Scrivello in the movie version of the show.